


Prankster

by IMAgentMI



Category: Red vs. Blue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:25:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7544980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IMAgentMI/pseuds/IMAgentMI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Submitted for the RvB Fluff War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prankster

Theta was hiding something.

When you live every hour of your life sharing the contents of your mind with someone else, you learn that privacy is a luxury.  Yes, you can learn to build barriers of a sort, block the other person from reading your thoughts plainly, hiding your mood, masking your bond.  The problem is, you can’t hide that you are doing it.  They are aware of that barrier.  

North was aware of Theta’s barrier now.

It wasn’t alarming.  They both used them on occasion and never had hidden anything serious from each other.  It’s in your best interests to be on the same page with the person who shares your head- when one of you suffers, you both suffer, and no barrier they could construct could change that.  

Also, they never attempted to block each other completely.  Their barriers were more like pieces of a walll that they could crouch behind, an admission that something is being hidden, but reassurance that the other person could at any time approach the wall and see what was behind it, if they chose to.  They never had, and held each other’s limited privacy with respect.

So when North could feel Theta’s bubbling humour despite the barrier, when he felt the distant tickling sensation of Theta speaking with someone else, he very carefully didn’t smile.  He focused completely on removing the last of his armour, and he tried to shove down the realization that popped up in his mind.

_They’re playing a joke._

_No.  Focus on the armour._  He tried to keep his mind blank and still like a ripple-less pond, empty except for the thought of how he liked to hang everything just so in his locker.  

_Don’t guess when it might happen.  Don’t think about what it might be.  Let him surprise you.  He loves this.  Don’t spoil it._

He became aware of whispering voices behind him, stifled giggling matched with the same sensation of bubbles rising over the barrier.  As he placed his last piece of armour on its hook, he finally realized that his clothes were missing.

_Here we go._

“Theta?”  North didn’t need to call out to find out where Theta was - if he closed his eyes, he’d be able to point straight at him - but this was a chance to give them a heads up that he was on his way.  Might as well do this right.

North stepped around a bank of lockers to find Wash arranging himself in an oh-so-casual pose, leaning against a locker.  On his shoulder, Theta copied his pose exactly, leaning against the side of Wash’s head.  North couldn’t quite keep a smile from his face.  “Wash?  Theta?  Do you know what happened to my clothes?”  

“Haven’t touched them, haven’t seen them!” Wash’s relaxed smile gave North pause.  Wash was a terrible liar.  If he had done it, he’d be stammering and blushing, no way he’d be this poised.  So where did they --

North saw Wash’s eyes flick past him, and at the same moment there was a surge of triumph and laughter as Theta’s barrier fell.

There was pressure around his throat as someone caught the back of his undersuit, pulling it away from his neck.  Instinct made North strike out, trying to twist to grab the person behind him, and heard a half-gasp, half-laugh as York danced backwards out of his reach.  As York released his undersuit, the fabric snapped back and North let out a gasp of his own as it pinned something small, hard and cold against his neck.  The ice cube began to melt almost immediately and the trickle of freezing cold water down his back rallied an army of goosebumps across his body.  All attempts to grab the ice out of the neck of his suit only made it slide lower, and he finally snaked an arm behind his back to just keep it from sinking to embarrassing depths, and tried to ignore how the melt seemed to do that just fine on its own.  

Theta’s glee was ringing in his head, and he could see him still projected on Wash’s shoulder, bent over as though breathless.  Wash saw North looking over and pointed at his own shoulder, mouthing “it was Theta’s idea!” York had moved into his line of vision again, but a safe distance away, grinning widely, arms folded, attention divided between North and Theta.  For the life of him, York and Wash looked like two proud uncles, determined to pass on a lifetime’s expertise in troublemaking to the next generation.  

Theta flickered from Wash’s shoulder and returned to North’s.  At the same time, North felt him active in his head, embracing and sharing North’s discomfort, removing the sharpness of the cold and raising North’s body heat slightly so the last of the ice melted quickly and dripped down his suit (which wasn’t actually a help, but North tried to convince himself it was.)  Then Theta was hovering in front of him, pulsing with excitement.  “How was that, North?  Was that a good one?  You aren’t mad are you?”  The last question was accompanied by a flicker so brief that North might have missed it, had it not been paired with a guilty twinge in his head.  

“Not mad at all, Theta.  That was a good one!”  

“So how are we going to get them back?”  Behind Theta, Wash and York waved and walked out of the locker room.  As they passed by, York set North’s missing clothes in a neat pile on the bench next to him.  North quickly stripped off his wet undersuit and started dressing.

As North pulled his shirt over his head, he leaned forward towards Theta and grinned.  “Get them back?  Sounds like you were the mastermind here - shouldn’t I be getting you back?”

Theta leaned forward too.  “Yeah, but that wouldn’t be as much fun!”

“What, for you or me?  I can really vividly remember a tickle fight I had with South once when we were seven...”

“No no no no no!!”

Theta glowed in his mind - his happiness and affection were almost tangible, a blanket of sunshine wrapped around North, and North included Theta in the sensation, shared his delight.  It felt like being hugged from the inside.  For the briefest moment, North wondered if life with an AI was like this for any of his other teammates, but something told him no.  He cut the thought away before it had the chance to grow sad.  

“Okay then, so here’s what we’re going to do…” Heads bent together like conspirators, North and Theta walked out of the locker room.


End file.
